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Kids’ Activities and Boat Rides at the Tacoma Maritime Festival

You saved July 16th or 17th on your calendar, right? Those are the dates for this year’s Maritime Festival in Tacoma, and we’re super excited that it’s right around the corner! If you come on Saturday, be sure to look for us!

The Maritime Festival is a FREE celebration in the heart of Tacoma’s waterfront, with more activities for the whole family every year.

You can go to the Foss Waterway Seaport museum, tour boats, build your own toy boat, and more!

You might even be able to get a free boat ride. Those are on Sunday, and it’s a once-a-year, don’t miss chance to tour the port by water! Because I know lots of you are wondering how to score a ride, I’ve pasted the insider scoop I got you last year below!

The Free boat rides at the Port of Tacoma are on the Sunday of Maritime Fest, July 17th. Tickets are first come, first served. This is a fun opportunity to get a unique view of the working side of the waterfront and the big container ships. You do want to go early, as the later boats fill fast. Tickets for that first sailing are available at 9AM. Last year, I got some more insider scoop for those of you wanting to score a ride. Here’s the email the organizers sent me.

If you arrive at 10 a.m., the 10 a.m. boat will have likely left and the only tickets you’ll be able to get are for the next tour at 11:30 a.m. Once the tickets for 11:30 are gone, tickets for the next tour at 1 p.m. won’t be available until the 11:30 tour leaves. You only stand in line if you have a ticket, so we only have a line for the next tour. Another example: If you arrive at 12:30 p.m., you can check at our booth – you might be able to get tickets for the 1 p.m.tour. If that tour is sold out, you can come back at 1 p.m. when we release the tickets for the 2:30 tour.

The tickets are available at the Port booth. You won’t be able to miss us.

The boat holds 225 people. Typically, the morning tours don’t fill up quickly, but no promises. The afternoon tours at 2:30 and especially 4 are typically full and tickets go quickly.

The rest of the festival fun happens JULY 16th 10am-6pm & JULY 17th 10am-5pm in the heart of Dock St in Tacoma (You’ll want to take a free shuttle. You can catch one from several stops, including the transit center, where parking is easy and free)! We’ll be there on the 16th with some fun activities for the kids, and, of course, I’d love to meet you!

Disclosure: Sounds Fun Mom is a media sponsor of the Tacoma Maritime Fest and received compensation and promotional consideration in exchange for this post. As always, the opinions are my own, and I appreciate you mentioning the site to the organizers if you go! Thanks for doing that!